Hate the Sin and Love the Sinner?

You’ve probably heard the saying: Hate the sin and love the sinner.

This is not a quote from the Bible. But is it biblical? Are there possible problems with this saying? How should we apply it?

Is it biblical?

Is the concept behind “hate the sin and love the sinner” in the Bible? To find the answer, let’s look at some related passages.

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:17-18).

These verses tell us not to hate our brother and to love our neighbor. They tell us not to take vengeance or bear a grudge, so that implies that these principles apply even to people who have wronged us.

Do we have to love everyone?

But does this passage mean we have to love everyone?

Love your neighbor as yourself is quoted nine times in the New Testament, and Jesus listed it as a second great commandment. Those trying to justify themselves tried to limit who was their neighbor, but the Bible makes it clear we are to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:43-45).

Godly love is an outgoing concern for others demonstrated by following the commandments of God in the letter and the spirit. Also 1 Thessalonians 3:12 tells us Paul wished that his readers would “increase and abound in love to one another and to all”—that is, to everyone.

And 1 John 3:14-15 tells us, “He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

Consider that, by biblical definition, every brother and every neighbor is a sinner. The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, emphasis added throughout).

So, taking all of these passages into account, yes, we should love all sinners.

Hate the sin?

And, clearly, we should hate sin.

Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.”

God hates evil and sin. He knows they will produce pain and suffering.

In Romans 12:9 Paul also wrote that we should “abhor what is evil.”

So hating sin and loving sinners is biblical. It is what God wants us to do.

But can “hate the sin and love the sinner” be misunderstood?

Can this saying seem to excuse sinners? Do most people who hear it really understand what sin is and why we should hate it? Do they really understand God’s love? God’s love includes not only mercy, but also justice. God doesn’t want us to continue living sinfully—that would not be a loving approach.

The real problem is not with the saying, “hate the sin and love the sinner.” It’s with how people define sin and hate and love!

Defining hate and sin

There’s a lot of debate about what is “hate speech,” for example. Can you love someone but be accused of hate speech? It sure seems that way.

According to Meta (the Facebook and Instagram people):

“Our current definition of hate speech is anything that directly attacks people based on what are known as their ‘protected characteristics’—race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or serious disability or disease.

“There is no universally accepted answer for when something crosses the line. Although a number of countries have laws against hate speech, their definitions of it vary significantly.”

Can people be accused of hate when they quote Bible verses that identify the sexual sins that God prohibits? Meta and many in our society don’t accept God’s definition of sin. They don’t accept God’s instruction to hate sin.

Hating sin doesn’t mean we have to look for ways to get in people’s faces and provoke them to accuse us of hate speech. Whatever we say, we must make sure our motive, like God’s, is love. And it’s generally not a Christian’s place to provoke anyone or any group. Still, we can’t change our belief in God’s law—a law God gave for the benefit of everyone—just because we might be accused of hate.

We must hate sin as God hates sin. That requires understanding what sin is. It’s the breaking of God’s law (1 John 3:4; see “What Is Sin?”). And it requires knowing how to hate sin, without hating the sinners.

Defining love

Then there is the way the word love is used. It has long been misused, of course, as just another word for sexual lust. Most of what is called love today is selfish and is far from the God-given virtue that accompanies spiritual fruit like longsuffering, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Godly love is an outgoing concern for others demonstrated by following the commandments of God in the letter and the spirit (Matthew 22:37-40; see “Fruit of the Spirit: Love”). Paul wrote that love “does not rejoice in iniquity [sin], but rejoices in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Yet some have redefined love as accepting sin and thus ignoring truth.

In this context, consider this opinion from religious blogger Jeremy Myers in a post titled “Stop Saying You ‘Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin.’” He wrote:

“The simple fact that we label the person we are talking about as a ‘sinner’ indicates that we do not have love for them in the first place.”

But that’s not how God defines love. And it is God who defines sin and sinner.

Applying God’s standard of love is hard. Let’s look at Leviticus 19:17-18 again. It might help us to think about it deeper to read it in another translation, so let’s look at the New Living Translation:

“Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”

Loving sinners who are close to us might involve confronting them. We are not to seek revenge, but to show love by humbly correcting and helping.

As Matthew Henry’s commentary notes, “Therefore rebuke him for his sin against God, because thou lovest him . . . Friendly reproof is a duty we owe to one another, and we ought both to give it and take it in love.”

The Bible gives instructions about how and when to give correction to others, and a big part of this involves first looking at ourselves. The most important sin for us to focus on is our own.

Hating our own sins

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained where we should start.

Jesus said, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).

Study more about this in our article “What Did Jesus Mean by ‘Judge Not’?” Considering our own failings should help us to be humble and compassionate toward others.

And after addressing our own sins by repenting (changing), if we still feel we need to help a brother, we should be “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Study more about how to do this in our article “Speak the Truth in Love.”

However, in most cases God does not expect a Christian to rail against the sins of everyone he or she hears about. We definitely can’t judge other people’s hearts and motives (1 Kings 8:39), and we are not to condemn (Luke 6:37). That’s God’s job.

Our article “Judge With Righteous Judgment” explains:

“It’s so easy to use righteous judgment as a weapon. But if that’s our intent, we’re missing the point entirely. The primary function of righteous judgment is to make decisions about our own life.”

Hating all sin—in love

This doesn’t mean we should ignore the fact that we are all sinners and that sin is afflicting our world and causing the terrible problems and suffering all around us. God wants us to sigh and cry about the abominations (Ezekiel 9:4).

This should motivate us to pray for God’s Kingdom—God’s loving plan to bring peace under the government and laws of God. And it should lead us to see the importance of the preaching of the gospel—the good news—of that Kingdom. (See our articles “Thy Kingdom Come” and “What Is the Mission of the Church?”)

So, yes, we should hate sin—especially our own. And we should learn to love all sinners—everyone—the way God loves them and wants us to love them.